The idea of beautifying an outdoor space seems straightforward enough – flowers and sculptures and whatnot – but Polish street artist NeSpoon turns that idea into something so beautifully different that it transforms the ordinary into the spectacular.

Working in paint, crochet, and carving, NeSpoon gives dingy and uncared-for urban surfaces new life by adorning them with what she calls “public jewelry.” Her pieces are inspired by lace, often taking on the shapes of enormous doilies painted on the sides of exterior walls.

Other lace-inspired pieces are crocheted into or onto various rough objects to create an extreme visual dichotomy. Some pieces are carved into wood or clay, the intricate patterns looking like entire universes. And then there are the truly random pieces painted onto pieces of concrete or the sides of moored boats.

For many of the pieces, NeSpoon has permission to apply her particular type of artwork on buildings or other public spaces. But some are true urban interventions, appearing in unexpected spaces to provide onlookers with a little bit of beauty and whimsy to brighten their day.

If you happened to notice a USB stick poking out of a brick wall in an urban space, would you be brave enough to connect your computer to it just to see what it might contain? Will it dump a bunch of malicious software onto your machine, or reveal something amazing? You just never know. The Dead Drops offline peer-to-peer file sharing project has been called “the nerd equivalent to glory holes,” bringing the sense of anonymity provided by the internet into the real world in a way that feels conspicuously sketchy.

Berlin-based artist Aram Bartholl took inspiration from the methods spies used to transfer information in a secret location. The process of accessing or distributing files on these networks is anonymous, you can share anything you want, and actually plugging your laptop or tablet into the drive sometimes requires bending at awkward angles or doing something that looks vaguely suspicious.

Bartholl notes that the ‘danger’ of participating in the project is no different from that of sharing files on the internet – the veracity of that claim has not been verified, however. People typically share photographs, art, poetry and videos. The drives range from 64 megabytes to a whopping 120 gigabytes. To install one of your own, just find or create a hole in a wall or other urban surface, remove the thumb drive’s plastic case and wrap the memory board with waterproof tape, place it in the hole with just the port exposed and cement it in with fast-setting concrete.

The project started in 2010 and has since grown to thousands of locations worldwide, according to a database that tracks where they’ve been installed. Some can be found in the busiest areas of cities like New York, while others are in abandoned buildings off the beaten track. You can find out whether there are any near you, or create one of your own using the Dead Drops site’s instructions. To be safe, consider using a secondary or otherwise spare laptop for such adventures.

Over three hundred bus shelter ads across the UK have been replaced with thought-provoking works criticizing capitalist culture by 40 street artists. The ‘Brandalism‘ posters were installed in high-traffic areas, from the busiest shopping district of London to the Leeds  Half Marathon route and even outside Scotland Yard, right under the noses of the police officers lambasted by several of the designs.

“The large print giveth, the small print taketh away,” reads one, while another parodies Harrod’s department store with “Horrids – trite gewgaws, trinkets & trash, the cluster bombs of consumerism.” “The market is dead, long live the market,” a third repeats.

The campaign is a response to the fact that the UK’s advertising industry pays just under 250 per person each year to reach the ears and eyeballs of the citizens i the hopes of selling things like “adjustable mops and leather sofas.” Plus, the industry relies on manipulation ranging from the subtle to the overt, convincing us that we won’t be happy until we make more money in order to purchase all of this stuff. It’s not about catering to our needs, it’s about creating new desires.

The campaign explains, “The fight against advertising is not a fight against desiring. We should want more from life not less, and we should demand it. The question is more of what? This exhibition is about trying to open up questions about the ills created by advertising, the false needs and destructive desires it attempts to distill in us, and it is about trying to reclaim some of the spaces taken from us.”

Brandalism even has a suggestion for anyone who isn’t a big fan of the work their artists produced: “Swapping them is easier than you’d imagine. All you need are some o the magic cabinet keys and a trusty hi-viz vest to remain hidden in plain sight. So if you don’t like what we’ve put up, check out our guide to opening the cabinets, and replace it with something you prefer. Because after all, they’re your streets.”

An abandoned, deteriorating bridge in the city of Kosice in Slovakia has been rehabbed and modified to serve as an amphitheater and public gathering space that glows in bright rainbow colors at night. The urban intervention was organized by Atrium Studio and Esterni as a temporary installation to reclaim this prominent disused space.

On one side of the bridge, a wooden framework was built that serves as a stage for concerts and performances. On the other, a wooden seating system makes the concrete surface more comfortable for those who come to enjoy the free public shows.

This project echoes many other urban interventions that seek to take the ownership of neglected or abandoned urban spaces into the hands of the people.

Urban interventions can be as subtle as adding eyeballs to mailboxes and other public objects, or as bold as repainting an entire abandoned church in shocking hues.

For the last two years, artist Ian Strange has traveled the East Coast of the United States, painting suburban homes in shocking shades of red and black, and in some cases, burning them down. The project is called SUBURBAN, and it takes a look at the suburban house as a cultural icon, and its significance as an integral part of the American Dream. “The idea of this project is to start to reduce the suburban home and the family home in the suburbs,” says Strange.

Strange brought film crews and volunteers to Ohio, Detroit, Alabama, New Jersey, New York and New Hampshire to alter, photograph and film eight suburban interventions. One home bears a stark red X; another is painted solid black but for a circle in the middle. Another bears a massive mural of a human skull.

The video gives us eerie glimpses of these homes during the process of their destruction. Other symbols of comfortable, deceptively satisfying suburban life, like a swing blowing gently in the wind, make for a stunning contrast against the altered homes.

“You take such potent imagery as the home, and suburbia, and something that is so familiar, and subvert it and twist it so slightly… you begin to articulate that sense of isolation,” says Strange.